Introduction
This project was carried out in Pasoh Forest Reserve, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia, from June to July 2008, with funding from the Museum of Comparative Zoology's grants-in-aid for undergraduate research and permission from the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia (FRIM).
My aim was to record samples of animal sounds in different tropical habitat types, in order to test the following hypotheses:
- Acoustic Niche hypothesis: that communities of sound-producing species that call simultaneously show less overlap between their calls in terms of frequency, timing, and duration, compared to a randomly assembled set of species from thatsame locality (the null model).
- Acoustic Complexity hypothesis: that structurally complex habitats have more complex and occupied soundscapes than simpler, disturbed habitats.
The background to this work is described in the section on acoustic ecology theory.
I chose to work in Pasoh because it is a relatively well-known and accessible research forest. The reserve is bordered on three sides by oil palm plantations, so comparisons between anthropogenic and relatively undisturbed rainforest could be done easily. Recording was done using commercially available minidisc recorders and omnidirectional microphones. For each habitat type (primary forest, old-growth selectively logged forest, oil palm plantation) I selected three localities from which I recorded on three different days, capturing an hour of sound at dawn (the 'dawn chorus'), and hourly ten-minute recordings for every subsequent hour until just before dusk.
Location of Pasoh Forest Reserve (Simpang Pertang is the adjacent small town):
Approximate bounds of the Forest Reserve drawn on top of the satellite image from Google Maps:
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